Does He Love Me?
by peacefulsands
Summary: Events lead to Jensen and Cougar coming to a realization about their own feelings, but will anything be enough for them to see each other's?


**Does He Love Me?**

**Fandom** : The Losers

**Characters** : Team with focus on Jensen & Cougar, (building in the direction of Jensen/Cougar)

**Rating** : PG-13

**Word Count** : about 2900

**Disclaimer** : All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

The story was written for this prompt : _Does He Love You_ - Reba McEntire & Linda Davis. Now I confess I didn't know the song so I had a look on Youtube and saw a vid which helped me come up with a couple of ideas for this.

Thanks to the people who read this in advance and offered advice. It was much appreciated.

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><p><strong>Does He Love Me?<strong>

Jensen had been too close to the explosion, Cougar knew he probably shouldn't even still be alive, but it was Jensen and he was tenacious and Cougar knew he could trust him to do everything to keep hanging on to life. Jensen moaned weakly and Cougar leaned in closer, tightening his grip on the younger man's hand and whispered, "Hold on, Pooch is coming." Jensen's eyelids flickered, gradually opening a crack, his eyes tracking slowly round to meet Cougar's.

He wasn't even trying to hide the pain he was in and he was beyond being able to do anything to help himself beyond the struggle to breathe and stay alive. Cougar knew that he'd struggled to keep going long enough for them to reach this temporary shelter and that was with Cougar bearing most of his weight. "Hurts," he coughed weakly.

"I know," Cougar answered, feeling a cold chill shiver through his spine at the thought that if the rest of the team didn't get here soon, they wouldn't be taking Jensen home alive. Cougar gently wiped away blood that was trickling from the cut on Jensen's forehead before it slid into his eyes, listening as Jensen coughed weakly again. Time was running out. "Don't leave me, Jensen, please don't leave me," he begged softly, knowing he might be asking more than Jensen could do. "I need you," he whispered, tears in his eyes.

Jensen's eyes slid closed and his breath rasped in slow stuttering gasps. Cougar was afraid that every one might be his last. Jensen's eyes opened again a little while later, his grip tightening a little and then relaxing where his hand was wrapped in Cougar's. "Coug'r," he looked as though he was about to try and say more, but Cougar just hushed him telling him not to waste energy. Jensen murmured his sister's name and Cougar promised they would all look after her. It was enough, Jensen's eyes slid closed again and Cougar's heart began to break at the thought of not being able to save Jensen.

His thoughts were broken by the dull thud thud of an approaching helicopter. He heard Pooch's voice over the comms asking what was happening and Cougar could barely get the words out to say that they were undercover and that Jensen was not doing well. "I've got paramedics on board, Cougs," Pooch informed him, "Don't give up on him yet." It was the work of moments for the chopper to be on the ground and for people to be running for him; Clay, Roque, strangers . . .

It took the combined strength of both Clay and Roque to pull him away and let the paramedics start work on Jensen. Time ticked by as they worked trying to stabilize Jensen enough to be able to move him. The rest of the team were thankful for the respite in the onslaught that came about from the combined attacks that had taken place on the compound, between them the threat had been neutralized, it was just a sad fact that the explosion Jensen had been caught by was nothing more than bad luck. If he'd rounded the corner just a little quicker, he'd possibly not have been hit at all.

Instead he was here, fighting for his life as Cougar watched in horror.

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><p>Jensen was fed up, abso-fucking-lutely fed up. Life sucked ass. He was sat at a table with Roque and Clay, but while the other men were drinking beers and in Clay's case something stronger, he was stuck with soda. He'd whined and moaned about it, until Clay had agreed he could have a drink . . . on one condition. When the Colonel had held his hand out and demanded the painkillers that Jensen was taking in exchange for the beer he wanted, the younger man had just glared and shut up. Life sucked ass and the whole world was against him, he thought again, gaze settling on Cougar who was stood at the bar, chatting with some pretty mincey little thing with long hair and a nice booty. Jensen wanted to just stab her eyes out with a spork.<p>

Jensen was only out of the hospital a day and a half, and Roque had said it wasn't so much that the doctors thought he should be released because he was doing so well, but rather because he'd pissed so many people there off with his constant princess whining. Jensen had glared, wanting to swing for the other man, XO or not, but in truth, even with the painkillers, that was going to hurt him more than he could ever hurt Roque, so it just wasn't worth the effort.

When the girl, 'bitch' Jensen added mentally, stretched up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Cougar's lips, the tech decided he'd had enough. He drained the rest of his soda, then pushed his chair back and stood up. Clay and Roque were both immediately on their feet and grabbing at his arms, but Jensen just tried to shake them off and stalk his way to the door. He ignored the fact that the whole stalking thing was more of a slow awkward hobble with Roque's arm for support. Outside the door, he tried to shake Roque off. Not that Roque was getting the message, dense bastard that he was. "You developing some sort of twitch there, princess? I need to get you to a medic?"

"Fuck off and let me die in peace," Jensen gritted out.

"Really? Or figuratively?" Roque demanded trying to pull him in the direction of the car despite his attempts at resisting. "You going home? Or are we doing a ten mile hike?"

"Home," Jensen grunted out, giving up the attempts at resisting. "But you don't need to stay, I can die in peace without you yacking in my ear or failing that take some meds and sleep till morning when you can all regale me with tales of what a wonderful night you all had without me to cramp your style."

Roque sighed dramatically, then propped Jensen against the side of the car while he opened the door, as he said, "Poor princess, what you sulking about?"

"Leave me alone!" Jensen lowered himself into the car and stared resolutely out of the window, ignoring Roque's laughs.

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><p>Cougar flirted for a while but his heart wasn't in it, he didn't really want to go anywhere with this girl. He'd rather have been sat with his team, relaxing. Not checking that Jensen was alright, not doing that at all. Jensen was fine, the doctors had released him; he had to be fine.<p>

He looked across at the table where he had left the majority of his team-mates, there was no sign of Jensen and Roque was missing too. Fear spiked and he turned back to the girl, saying, "I'm leaving," with no further explanation or apology before striding across to Clay, setting his glass on the table and leaning over to demand, "Where's Jensen?"

Clay frowned. "What's the problem? Jensen's gone home, had enough for the night. I told him. You heard me tell him he should stay back and rest, so now I'm right, don't look so damn thrown by it!"

"You let him go back alone!" Cougar gritted the words out.

Clay's frown changed to a very definite glare, "I'd think about what you were saying there, soldier. . . Roque took him, anyway. Seriously, the kid's tired, he needs rest, there was nothing the matter with him. It's not like him being here was enough to draw you away from the lady glaring at you from the bar, so don't go all 'we've got to look after Jensen' on me now! You think I haven't noticed?"

Cougar looked away guiltily, not happy about the reference to the girl who was still glaring at him from the bar. "I'm going back."

Clay waved him away and let his own gaze rest for a few moments on the girl at the bar, watching as her gaze softened and she smiled at him. As Cougar left, she made her way over and Clay pushed a chair out for her to sit beside him.

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><p>Roque had kept mostly quiet while he helped Jensen into the house and Jensen couldn't quite make up his mind whether to be pleased by that or even more pissed that Roque was treating him with kid gloves. He tried again to shake off the supporting hand that Roque had under his elbow, only to almost lose his balance and then see the 'I told you' look on Roque's face. "Oh, shut the fuck up!" he snapped. "Don't shout at me with those eyes!"<p>

Roque laughed. "Quit whining! So TV or bed?"

"Bed. No fucking point in watching TV, no fucking point in living. Just give me the painkillers and euthanize me now!"

"Whoa! Channelling your inner drama queen, princess? Definitely past your bed time, sweetheart!"

Jensen sighed in annoyance and glared. "It hurts!"

"Of course it fucking hurts, dumbass. That's the whole point of the 'regular intervals' on those instructions on your meds. You were the one who didn't run fast enough, so didn't give me any shit. I wasn't the one who got my ass handed to me by a fucking wall flying through the air!"

"Fuck off! I nearly died . . ."

"Yeah, you did, so be grateful it was only nearly. I could see my way to making it less nearly and more definite if you keep this fucking attitude up."

"You're an unsympathetic fucking asshole, you know that? Cougar would be more sympathetic!"

"Sure he would. Cougs just doesn't tell you to shut up, doesn't mean to say he isn't thinking it at ya!"

Jensen lowered himself carefully on to the bed and took a few deep breaths before starting to lean forward to take his boots off. Roque gave him a gentle nudge to keep him upright, then undid the laces and pulled the boots off himself. "Thanks," Jensen said quietly, as he stood back up to start taking off his pants.

"You're welcome. Now are you okay long enough for me to go get your next meds?" Roque asked and as Jensen nodded, he left the room quickly.

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><p>Jensen had managed to convince Roque that he was just going to sleep and so the XO had finally agreed to go back to the bar. It gave him nothing to do but lie and think about Cougar and what he thought he remembered. He was certain that Cougar had virtually carried him out of danger and to the pick up point, knew that once he'd been injured he'd been as good as useless. He remembered the pain, didn't need the constant ongoing reminder that he had now to remember that, but maybe he'd imagined the rest.<p>

He was sure he remembered Cougar gripping his hand, holding him tight and telling him to hold on, to not die and that he needed him. Maybe that was a different kind of need to the one he felt. He sighed and his mind pictured the skank at the bar. That bitch deserved to . . . die painfully . . . drawn slowly over hot coals . . . bitchslapped into next week . . . no, she deserved to be blownup . . . smithereens . . . there was a word that should be used more often . . . she deserved to be blown into trillions of smithereens.

He fell asleep imagining ways of blowing her up. A package in the mail, a box wrapped in sparkly paper with butterflies and teddy bears and a glittery ribbon, a bomb under her car . . . hmmm. . . Amber would know all about that . . . maybe he should try to get in touch with Amber.

He drifted deeper into sleep.

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><p>Cougar took a while to make his way back and when he got there, the house was in darkness with no sign of the car or Roque. No one making sure Jensen was alright, unless . . . He resisted the urge to swear as he hurried to the front door, desperate to make sure that Jensen was there and safe and not back in the hospital.<p>

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><p>Jensen's heavily medicated slumber let his dreams roam in full Technicolor detail. He imagined slipping the package into the girl's car and her driving away into the distance down a deserted road until the package exploded. Just before it did, he caught sight of Cougar's hat beside her, too late to stop the bomb, too late to get Cougar out of the car.<p>

He tossed awkwardly, gasping in pain even as the dream continued to play out and he saw himself realize that he'd killed Cougar. He pulled himself out of the dream, almost awake with a moan before sinking back under, the weight of the drugs dragging him down.

The dream was replaced with a second, even less realistic, the skank accepting the box in all its decorated glory and carrying it with her on to a speed boat where she sipped from a glass of champagne as the boat pulled away from the dock. Jensen's focus was on her until the boat was way out in the water, too far to shout, too far away to do anything but watch as the boat slowed and gradually drifted to a stop. Cougar's hat standing up from the boat's controls and moving across to the girl and accepting his own glass, just before the boat was blown high into the air.

Jensen choked back a gasp of horror and pain in his sleep as he couldn't pull himself out of the dream, watching the boat shatter into pieces that scattered and came to settle over the top of the water and there in the middle of it all was Cougar's hat, the incessant reminder, the torture that through his own deeds, he killed the one who meant the most.

Jensen moaned and twisted in his sleep, still unable to break free of the nightmare.

hr

Cougar was barely halfway up the stairs when he heard the first moan of pain and distress. He forgot all about quiet and not disturbing as he took the rest of the stairs two at a time and threw open the door to Jensen's room. The tech was asleep, sweat beading on his brow, head tossing back and forth as he moaned and Cougar heard a plea, "No . . . no . . . please . . . Coug . . . No!"

He crossed to the bed, sitting down beside Jensen and reaching out to run a hand through his hair to try and calm him, leaning closer to reassure him with the words, "Sssh, calm, Jensen. Rest."

"Coug'r, no," Jensen was almost sobbing in his sleep and Cougar watched as Jensen tried to toss again, gasping at the sudden movement. He gently shook Jensen, calling his name until his eyes finally flickered open.

There was a moment of confusion and then Jensen shut his eyes again and started to roll away. Cougar tried to stop him and Jensen just pulled harder, biting his lip to try and hide the pain but bringing unwanted tears to his eyes in the process. "Go away," he choked out.

"No," Cougar replied softly, hand still resting lightly on Jensen's shoulder. "What's the matter?"

Jensen shook his head and tried to bury himself deeper into the covers. "Why are you even here?" he gritted out angrily. "Shouldn't you still be charming the panties off of skank-face?"

"Skank-face?"

"Go away."

"Jensen . . ." Cougar felt the shivers and tremors still coursing through Jensen's body, moved his hand from Jensen's shoulder to his forehead, where Jensen tried to feebly bat it away.

"You don't want to be here . . ." the words spilled out of Jensen's mouth a moment before he could fully process them and realize they might be what he felt, but they weren't what he wanted to say. "No! I mean I don't want you to be here!" he snapped.

"I do want to be here," Cougar said. "I want to be where I can see you're alive, see you're still breathing." Cougar took a deep breath and added, "I nearly lost you."

"Like you'd care."

"I'd care."

"You would?" Jensen asked unsure, calming a little, as Cougar's fingers toyed with his hair.

"I would."

"How much?" Jensen's question was met with a non-committal shrug as he let himself fall onto his back again, and the hacker's face fell. "Oh!"

Cougar looked embarrassed then, "A lot," he whispered. "Mi vida."

"Seriously?" Cougar nodded and Jensen let a whoosh of breath. "Then lie the fuck down beside me, because I feel like crap and I need to rest."

Cougar settled himself against the wall beside Jensen, letting the other man curl in beside him. He let his hand drift through Jensen's hair and watched him yawn, his eyes heavy as the tension gradually left him and he slid back into sleep safe with the knowledge that this time Cougar was keeping guard over his dreams, chasing the nightmares away.


End file.
